“One of my main jobs is to expose the myth of American exceptionalism,” said Oscar-winning director Laura Poitras (“Citizenfour,” “The Oath”) at Amsterdam’s historic Royal Theatre Carré, where she sat for an extended Master Talk with IDFA’s artistic director, Orwa Nyrabia.
The American filmmaker, who is also this year’s Guest of Honor at IDFA, started the event by telling the audience she first met Nyrabia in Berlin soon after his first arrest in 2012. “I just think it’s important to know that the person who’s organizing this festival is a filmmaker, and a filmmaker who has put his life on the line many times,”She spoke.
The sentiment of camaraderie and mutual admiration between the friends permeated the in-depth conversation, which touched on Poitras’ entire filmography and its unifying threads.
“With every new film, you are proposing a new hope, tackling a new disaster,” commented Nyrabia, when speaking about finding hope within his own work and examining Poitras’ criticism of American structures as hopeful, too. “There is a dark side to what we do, dark traditions, which falls within imperial history. And how do you undo that? How do you interrogate power? How do ask the audience to question themselves without making it easy?”
“As an American, it is terrifying to witness [the invasion of Iraq]. We are proposing to invade a country because we think they might do something. What an obscene contradiction, right? We’re occupying you but it’s really just to bring you freedom. It was really hard to stomach,”Poitras commented on her second feature when she was speaking of it. “My Country, My Country.”
“It’s a question of belonging and loving your country, your society, the place where you come from. You say ‘we invaded Iraq,’ taking responsibility without hesitation,”Nyrabia said this when Nyrabia noticed that Poitras was showing love for her country through criticisms of its sociopolitical structures. “Which is different than love, but go ahead,” Poitras quickly responded, before expanding: “I don’t personally feel a lot of love. I feel like there are lies that I don’t want to participate in, and some sense of responsibility, but love isn’t… I mean, this is a public talk, Orwa! [laughs] It’s a global superpower and I’m a citizen so I have to use the word we.”
When we talk about being “blacklisted”The U.S. government clarified the matter: “I was put on a terrorist watchlist after I returned from Iraq. The U.S. decided that I was a threat to national security based on the fact I was seen with the camera in the Red Zone [the term designating unsafe areas in Iraq after the 2003 U.S. invasion]. I talk about it a lot and, whenever I do my bio, I always include that for a couple of reasons: one because I’m proud of it in the sense they’re paying attention, and the work is causing some discomfort. And also because of the fact that I’m white, a woman and a U.S. citizen, people think, ‘oh, surely she’s just a filmmaker,’ and hopefully that can be translated when people hear about other journalists who were taken to Guantanamo, innocent people, real horror stories.”
On top of being the festival’s Guest of Honor, the director is also the subject of a career retrospective and has curated a special Top 10 selection, which includes titles such as Steve McQueen’s “Hunger,” Claude Lanzmann’s “Shoah,” and Frederick Wiseman’s “Titicut Follies.” “It’s not a top 10 of my favorite films, that’s a list I don’t think I can make and I’m a little cautious about those lists,” she explained when detailing her curation process, “but I did think I could select a group of films that moved me, that made me think about questions about my role as a filmmaker, and that is organized around questions of state violence and representation. These films are also very influential for me as a way to think about making work.
“The first that felt necessary politically and because of my love for the film is Jafar Panahi’s ‘This Is Not a Film.’ It’s such a beautiful film because of its resistance, the state violence is expressed by the means he had to use to make a film, to pretend it’s not a film. The violence is represented in ways that are just haunting and I thought that if we were going to do this, we need to talk about Panahi.”
Throughout the talk, Poitras reiterated the importance of a free press, particularly when discussing the main subject of 2016’s “Risk,” WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. “It’s important to emphasize the danger right now to journalism because of the U.S. efforts to extradite [Assange] and prosecute him under the espionage act, which is for his journalism, for publishing truthful information about U.S. occupations and war crimes. That is what the U.S. government has been trying to extradite him for, and I think it is the biggest threat to press freedom right now. And, you know, it’s also very personal because these are things that I can be accused of, and other national security journalists can be accused of.”
“There is this time when you’re finishing something and you’re still finding the words for it,”Poitras said this when she was discussing her film, Golden Lion-winner “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” labelled by Variety’s Owen Gleiberman as “profound” “incendiary.” “I’m really proud to work alongside Nan [Goldin, lauded artist and the film’s central subject]. She’s a collaborator in this film and has a lot of public-facing bravery that I’ve had in other films, but there’s a kind of real emotional vulnerability that she brings that has been extraordinary for me to work with.”
Despite clear connections to her prior work, “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”It feels like Poitras is entering a new era of thematics, noted Nyrabia. “In a way, there are a lot of things in this new film that returns to even before ‘Flag Wars.’ When I was studying much more avant-garde art, I was introduced to Nan’s work. It’s radical. It’s not speaking of what a traditional narrative structure is. It doesn’t have three acts. There are a lot of things about Nan’s work that are kind of like coming home, you know? It’s different but it actually feels very familiar to work I really love and care about. And it is interesting to see these in dialogue, to see the work next to each other. There are things that are connected, and it’s a kind of surrendering to the process. The work that we do, it’s always in collaboration with the people that allow us to film.”
When asked by IDFA’s artistic director why, after branching into activism and publishing (Poitras co-founded non-profit news organization The Intercept), she kept returning to filmmaking, Poitras said she felt the art form is the only one she has the experience for: “Images can communicate something to the world that words can’t. If we can just see it… If we can just see it, maybe it will change something. We know the U.S. is torturing people, that Guantanamo is still people, but maybe seeing it will change it.”
Between Nov. 9-20, IDFA will be held in Amsterdam.